Blinds Xpress Recalling More Than 450,000 Blinds

Blinds Xpress is recalling more than 450,000 blinds after a 2-year-old girl reportedly strangled in the loop of a vertical blind cord that was not attached to the wall or the floor.

The company, along with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, said Thursday that the recall includes about 139,000 custom-made vertical blinds and 315,000 horizontal blinds.

The incident involving the Commerce Township, Mich., girl was from 2009.

The Blinds Xpress custom vertical blinds have an adjustment cord that creates a loop that is not attached to the wall or floor. Sometimes the loop has a weighted device at the bottom. The custom horizontal blinds do not have inner cord stop devices to prevent the accessible inner cords from being pulled out. A child can become entangled in a cord loop and strangle.

The recall includes all Blind Xpress custom-made vertical blinds that do not have a cord-tensioning device that attaches to the wall or floor and all horizontal blinds that do not have inner cord stop devices.

The blinds were sold from January 1995 through December 2011 for between $16 and $380 at stores in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

Consumers should immediately stop using the blinds, the agency said, and contact the Window Covering Safety Council at 800-506-4636 or at www.windowcoverings.org to receive a free repair kit.